Alignment Sucks

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

Is this a serious discussion about actual morality, or how morality actually functions in D&D? I'll move over and let the big dogs crap where they want if it's the former--my semester of Intro to Philosophy and semester of Ethics only go so far. If it's the latter, then I'm in the right place, as what I've described is (original) D&D alignment.

Besides, building the Death Star is more important than many of Vader's other goals, just as should any mastermind's master plan be more important than executing Super-smart Minion A. Minion A gets a pass… until he's finished building the super-weapon, at which point he's unnecessary, and, therefore, warrants the Grip of Death (tm). It's a matter of scale, not relativism. It's not, "I'll save the orphans because they'll all become liches" kind of crap but "I'll let the orphans burn because I'm going to be making a planetful or orphans later."

[RandomCasualty]

1147671947[/unixtime]]
His activities are motivated by both selfishness and altruism; he personally holds a distaste towards the thought of women ruling since he's a sexist bastard and that's a continuing source of motivation.

Well yeah that's a personal code I'd say. And since it's motivating his actions, I'd say it makes him lawful.

In case you didn't notice, it's almost impossible to have social reorganizations in medieval society without having war/mass death (like from a plague) and it's impossible to have war at all without innocents suffering/dying.

Right, this is generally why "good" characters don't initiate war until things get really bad, like the enemy is attacking them, or the government is irredeemably evil in their eyes anyway.

Elves are a greedy, wasteful race (in Zaha's eyes) since they take up huge tracks of necessary land, refuse to make compromises for the sake of other races, and their only export is magic--which since humans and half-orcs age and learn much faster, it's makes more sense to have humans and half-orcs pioneer these things.

Well, this doesn't necessarily sound like a moral judgment so much as a logical one, and sounds more like the thinking of a neutral character as opposed to a good one. Remember that a good character is going to preserve life as much as he can and he tends to judge people on an individual basis, not on the level of an entire race. While he can still be racist, his internal morality would probably say that attacking them wtihout reason is wrong.

The barbarian tribes are pissed off because they're eking out a living on shitty land and they reproduce faster than the people who have good land. Selling out the dwarves wouldn't do any good because their lifestyle wouldn't benefit the barbarian tribes. But the elves are sitting on huge swathes of land for no reason other than cultural reasons. So they gotta go.

Well, nonetheless you're stealing their land from them, which is not a good act. Good characters generally don't believe in a "needs of the many over the needs of the few", they're pretty much looking for a perfect solution where they avoid hurting anyone, unless it's absolutely necessary. Even then, they'll try to minimize the damage done if at all possible. They probably wouldn't slaughter the elven nobles Machiavelli style, because they're slaying helpless captives who really don't need to die at the present time.

And by the way, I find the statement that since Zaha is willing to damn his own soul for the benefits of others that doesn't make him good curious.

Well, neutrals can be very willing to sacrifice themselves in non-selfserving causes, but they tend to have to do with things they care about. Dying for their country, dying for to protect a loved one, or something similar. Good characters on the other hand, tend to see a much bigger moral picture. And even while neutrals can be pretty devoted, they tend to value efficiency over humanity, and this is what Zaha appears to be doing. A good character is generally willing to take more risks to his plan to avoid inflicting harm, where a neutral is willing to cross those boundaries so long as he's not harming someone he cares about.

I think to be good you have to actively try to minimize bloodshed of the innocent. The elves in this case really haven't done anything wrong morally. And the good character probably would not see them worthy of being put to death, even if may cause some trouble later.

I also find it strange on how much your and K's answers differ especially since you guys do a really good job of arguing their case.

K is using more of a Gygaxian view towards good and evil, where evil characters actually desire to do evil simply for evil's sake. That's actually how things were supposed to work in 1st and 2nd edition, and to a degree how they're defined in the BoED and BoVD series, which tends to return to the age of absolute good and absolute evil morality. This pretty much just lays out a good team and an evil team, and if you're good, your goal is to slaughter the evil team, and vice versa. Neutrals in this paradigm are like double agents, who for whatever the fuck reason, try to make sure nobody wins the alignment war. Gygax never even bothered to try to define neutral. Neutrals were weird ass people. If you were lawful neutral you were like this mindless law following automaton. True neutral was just interested in maintaining a cosmic balance, and chaotic neutrals were self-control lacking madmen who just flipped a coin to resolve every major life decision. Pretty much Gygaxian evil means that you're a hardcore psychosadist. Under Gygaxian morality, basically the entire PC group had to be good, otherwise it didn't work at all.

I tend to go more by the definitions in the 3E PHB, which deals more with the motivation of the character as opposed to laying out actions which are absolutely evil regardless of context. Given that we have lawful good paladins who break into homes of creatures explicitly to slay them, I think the motivation is much more important than the actual act.

[Lago_AM3P]

I'd also like to point out that under most people's definition of good as far as D&D goes, there's no one who's ever been good in the history of whatever.

Mahatma Gandhi was amazingly sexist and even beat his spouse. Thomas Jefferson did slaves in the butt. Mohammed implemented extra rules that cause people to suffer for his own amusement.

There's a certain amount of lenience you have to allow--even for things like beating people just because violating your temple aesthetics pisses you off. I mean, even Jesus whipped people in the face.

But of course, people are willing to declare Thomas Jefferson as good even though he did people in the butt but if you decide in D&D that you're going to use poison and inflict painful torturous death upon demons for amusement you automatically shift to at least neutral.

A game system where Jesus doesn't get to be good needs it head examined right now.

[Book]

I'm waiting for Lago to scrape up some dirt on good ole' Mother Teresa.

And by the way Lago, do you have any published references on T.J.'s predilection for rump wrangling? I'd die laughing if the Face of the Five Cent left a racy diary blabbing about his affection for assification.

[Lago_AM3P]

And by the way Lago, do you have any published references on T.J.'s predilection for rump wrangling?

Not per se. That's just a vulgar, vulgar overexaggeration.

However, it's a known fact that he did rape his slaves. So actually the truth is sadder than my wild lie.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

1148844669[/unixtime]]I'd also like to point out that under most people's definition of good as far as D&D goes, there's no one who's ever been good in the history of whatever.

There's a few things that need to be pointed out. Firstly, not everyone who commits evil acts is evil. Even Paladins get an out as long as they're willing to atone and make a concerted effort not to do it again.

The other thing is that like so many other things, comparing real life that closely to D&D is... messy. In our world the presence of all-powerful beings that dictate exactly what's right and wrong is debatable at best, this tends to make morality a rather cultural and relativist concept. Mankind has been arguing since we could argue about what constitues evil, after all. That's why, if you want a campaign where Good and Evil as forces of nature play a part, you should dictate what constitues evil and good in your campaign. Otherwise, you will get arguements about wether the lesser evil is to light orc babies on fire, or let them grow into orc warlords.

-Desdan

[Lago_AM3P]

There's a few things that need to be pointed out. Firstly, not everyone who commits evil acts is evil. Even Paladins get an out as long as they're willing to atone and make a concerted effort not to do it again.

People who commit evil acts are evil until they atone, is the point.

You are allowed to be set back on the path of innocence in this game. However, you are not allowed to stray from it once you're on.

For example, say you have a paladin in your party and you're delivering iron golems and then along your adventures you meet Han Solo. Pre-Empire. Here's what's going to happen.

1. You're going to turn away Han Solo and then he'll continue to be a smuggling, shooting scoundrel for the rest of his life. Because your paladin code forbids you from associating with evil people.

2. You contract an illness and are bedridden for a couple of weeks while Han Solo and the rest of your party go on a kickass labyrinth adventure. When he gets back he's reformed and you can adventure with him. You don't break your paladin code at the cost of never actually doing something to help people.

3. You decide that Han Solo can be good if given the chance and you break your paladin code for the duration of the adventure. At the end, he becomes good and you get an atonement.


While that just shows the wackiness that is the paladin code, it highlights the point that you cannot actually simultaneously be 'good' while doing certain arbitrary things in this game.

That means that if you want to use poison or use skeleton armies in your game you will always be non-good during the relevant portions of the game, at best.

[Fwib]

How is smuggling evil?

Failure to pay taxes (to the evil empire) doesnt seem to warrant being picked by the evil team to me.

As for killing people - pshh! good adventurers do it all the time.

I'd put Han Solo down as neutral, tending to get sucked into the good thing as the plot unfolds.

However, having said that - I agree with your point - it is passing strange that a paladin might be banned from associating with someone, even if the point of the association might be to reform them.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

1148858790[/unixtime]]
People who commit evil acts are evil until they atone, is the point.

They are?

Forgive me, but you're the first DM I've ever met in my time playing D&D who makes players change their alignment to Evil after one single isolated evil deed. Everyone else I've met has required some sort of pattern of evil before your alignment begins to shift. And that includes my time in 2e, when alignment changes actually hurt.

-Desdan

[dbb]

I'm with Desdan here. Paladins who commit an evil act don't suddenly turn evil until they atone -- they lose their paladinhood until they atone, but they don't immediately turn evil.

And let's not forget that the government Han Solo is ripping off by not paying his import/export duties is in fact the Galactic Empire, which is run pretty much for the personal benefit of the biggest Evil bad guy in the campaign. Smuggling in this context probably deserves the chaotic tag, but I'd be pretty hard-pressed to call it evil, unless what he's smuggling is slaves or something, rather than, say, tea.

--d.

[RandomCasualty]

Um... ok..

First, when has Han Solo ever been viewed as evil? He was neutral at worst, if not chaotic good.

Second, I agree with Desdan, that's very harsh changing a guy's alignment for a single evil act, unless it was some act of irredeemable evil, like mass murder.

Third, the paladin's code is merely another place where it becomes apparent that rigid code morality fails. This isn't really something new, and I think it's important to give a lot of slack to the paladin's code and interpret using the spirit of the code as opposed to the letter of the code. In general, all moral arguments should be about the spirit as oposed to the letter.

"Not associating with evil" is generally there to prevent your paladin from getting quests from a pit fiend, even if the quest is to slay a balor. It also prevents your paladin from travelling with people who commit evil acts and simply turning a blind eye while they spread evil.

As far as brnging someone with you specifically to help them atone, that should definitely be fine.

[Lago_AM3P]

Um... ok..

First, when has Han Solo ever been viewed as evil? He was neutral at worst, if not chaotic good.

Second, I agree with Desdan, that's very harsh changing a guy's alignment for a single evil act, unless it was some act of irredeemable evil, like mass murder.

Star Wars isn't my field of expertise, but I'm pretty sure that after winning the Millenium Falcon, for a period of time he smuggled drugs and weapons for no reason other than profit.

That definitely counts as evil in my eyes.

"Not associating with evil" is generally there to prevent your paladin from getting quests from a pit fiend, even if the quest is to slay a balor. It also prevents your paladin from travelling with people who commit evil acts and simply turning a blind eye while they spread evil.

As far as brnging someone with you specifically to help them atone, that should definitely be fine.

There wasn't any intent to redeem Han Solo at first. They just wanted to get smuggled to another planet before they found out that it got exploded.

They were originally just using him for a service and intended to let him go on his merry way after they got to the planet with droids. I'm pretty sure that counts as associating with evil (see above) out of convenience.

Third, the paladin's code is merely another place where it becomes apparent that rigid code morality fails. This isn't really something new, and I think it's important to give a lot of slack to the paladin's code and interpret using the spirit of the code as opposed to the letter of the code. In general, all moral arguments should be about the spirit as oposed to the letter.

I say we just get rid of it. When you have a code that is blind to the consequences of your actions and you describe yourself as wanting to do the greatest good one of them is going to have to give.

But in the above example, still, the paladin would be in a state of non-innocence until he got an atonement. Other good characters have more leeway (such as not losing their alignment if they are caught lying), but there are still acts in this game which will nonetheless automatically put you in a non-pure state no matter what else you do: using undead, poison, certain artifacts, etc.

[dbb]

Not being an expert in continuity external to the actual movies, if you say he smuggled drugs and weapons, okay. I'd argue that this is probably still just plain neutral. In fact, depending on the exact circumstances, you could make a case for it being good.

Sounds unlikely? What if he's running guns to the Rebel Alliance? What if he's running guns to, not the Rebel Alliance, but to some cute and furry native resistance fighters who are pretty cheesed off at the Empire's destruction of their environment? Both of those situations have at some point in the past been actual adventure setups for the Star Wars RPG, so it's not even that unlikely. Selling weapons is not, in itself, an evil act; you don't see paladins running around closing down the local sword shop. So for smuggling guns to be a problem, either the weapons in question, the purpose for which they're being sold, or the act of smuggling itself need to be evil (and in the first two cases, known to the smuggler to be evil).

Now, following D&D as an example, I can imagine an "evil weapon" as being some kind of anti-life-force gun or whatever that does the Star Wars equivalent of Vile damage, but it seems more likely that he was probably just smuggling regular blasters. The act of smuggling just rips off a very evil bad guy and his minions, so it's probably not evil and may actually be obligatory for someone who considers himself Good. So if he was smuggling guns to slave traders or genocidal warlords, there might be a problem. If he was smuggling guns to people just fighting an ordinary war, that's probably just neutral.

Now, drugs. Very quickly, the case for Good: smuggling them to doctors inside a war zone. If people are suffering and dying and you can sneak through the lines with a cargo hold full of morphine, most people would probably say you've done some good. If you're smuggling recreational drugs, that's probably not a good act without some fairly contrived backstory, but it's also probably not an evil act unless the drugs in question have extremely harmful side effects, are viciously and harmfully addictive, or both. Smuggling marijuana or LSD is probably neutral at the absolute worst.

Finally -- let's not forget that Han Solo was also deeply in debt to Jabba the Hutt, so it's possible that he might have to have been forced to smuggle anything really nasty. I happen to think it's most likely that he started out neutral (though Lucas would probably insist that really, he only smuggled candy and toys to small children) and turned good later on, but I have a hard time buying him as evil at any point. Evil Han Solo would probably have turned Obi-Wan and Luke over to the cops for a reward, since he knew perfectly well they were on the run.

--d.

[User3]

Sounds unlikely? What if he's running guns to the Rebel Alliance?

He said it himself in the movie that he doesn't give a rat's ass who he works for as long as he gets money.

Han Solo arms evil people like Jabba the Hutt for no reason other than profit. There's no way to construe his motives and activies as anything other than evil.

but it's also probably not an evil act unless the drugs in question have extremely harmful side effects, are viciously and harmfully addictive, or both.

dbb, you've stated in a previous post that you've played KOTOR.

I haven't played it myself, but they should've made mention of the drug spice. Spice in that setting is an extremely potent drug that eats away at your health and free will to an extent that real world drugs can't. It's also prety much the only interplanetry drug in that setting, too.

...

There seems to be a bit of a cognitive dissonance among people. Since characters like Solo don't do classically supervillainish things like lay waste to entire villages then other activies are neutral at worst.

Well, guess what? Han Solo was pretty much a real life bad guy in every way. He was at one point no better than the drug runners we hate.

Maybe if he was ugly and had a snout and talked in an offensive accent more people would accept his actions (and character at the time) as being evil.

The fact that people are willing to assign different moral judgements to a character based on individual interpretation leads to bathos when converted to game mechanics.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Spice is a drug according to the Expanded Universe, but that doesn't mean anything by nessissarily in the context of the movies. Lucas has proven time and again that he doesn't give two shits about EU.

-Desdan

[RandomCasualty]

1148921898[/unixtime]]
He said it himself in the movie that he doesn't give a rat's ass who he works for as long as he gets money.

Han Solo arms evil people like Jabba the Hutt for no reason other than profit. There's no way to construe his motives and activies as anything other than evil.

Well honestly, we have no idea. Han Solo definitely portrays a mercenary attitude, but we see that he's not quite like that in reality, based on the fact that he decides to join the rebellion, and come back to help Luke. Pretending to be coldhearted does not make him evil.

Also we have no idea what he did for Jabba, aside from owing him a debt. Keep in mind that the movies are the only thing that are canon for the Star Wars setting. In the movies, Han did nothing evil.

Well, guess what? Han Solo was pretty much a real life bad guy in every way. He was at one point no better than the drug runners we hate.

Where has it ever been stated anywhere in the movies that he was a drug runner? We really don't know anything about his smuggling.

[dbb]

1148921898[/unixtime]]
He said it himself in the movie that he doesn't give a rat's ass who he works for as long as he gets money.

No, that's not what he said. He said "I'm not in it for your revolution" -- that's nowhere near the same thing.

It's possible that Solo arms evil people -- there's just no evidence for it. We have no idea, at least in the movies, what he's smuggling. He could be smuggling badly needed medical supplies. He could be smuggling slaves to be slaughtered and used as spare organs for wealthy Imperial big shots. We just don't know, and smuggling itself is not a priori an evil act.

Maybe if he was ugly and had a snout and talked in an offensive accent more people would accept his actions (and character at the time) as being evil.

If we had real evidence that he had actually done something actually evil, more people would accept him as being evil. But what do we in fact see him do?

* We see him make a deal to smuggle four passengers past the Imperial blockade -- at worst, a Neutral act.

* We see him shoot down someone in self-defense -- at worst, a Neutral act.

* We see him buy into Luke's hairbrained scheme to rescue the princess so he can make the big money -- at worst, a Neutral act.

* We see him throw all his "profit above all" talk to the winds and risk his life by coming back to help Luke over the Death Star -- at worst, a good act (though you could argue that this is after he's "redeemed", so it doesn't count in his favor).

The problem isn't that people don't think murder or trafficking in body parts or giving arms to genocidal thugs is a Bad Thing. The problem is that, when you talk about Han Solo doing these sorts of things, you're essentially talking about your own made-up backstory for Han Solo, rather than what facts we actually know about him -- and why should anybody believe your made-up backstory rather than their own?

It's like if someone came up and said, "Damn, Princess Leia's evil." And we all said, "WTF?" And the new guy said, "Well, her Dad brought her up as a tool of a corrupt puppet government run by the most evil men in the galaxy. Can you imagine how many plebes she must have been complicit of in the oppression of in her Senatorial career?"

We could all bring in all sorts of extraneous third-party bullshit if that's the way we wanted to go, like where the SW RPG says that Han Solo got himself kicked out of the Imperial Naval Academy rescuing Chewbacca because he was violently opposed to slavery. But fundamentally, the reason people don't think Han Solo is evil is because most people have never seen, heard, or read about Han Solo doing anything actually evil.

--d.

[PhoneLobster]

Evidence doesn't matter.

Because Paladin man is coming to town and he knows who's been naughty and nice.

By looking at them and saying "Gogo paladin detect evil".

So much for that human guy from Willow, looks like the midgets are on their own in that one.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

That is not just a failure of the alignment system, it's also a failure of the binary nature of Detect Evil, the tendency of PCs to favor killing over capturing and/or reforming enemies going back almost thirty years, and a failure of settings where "I am a Paladin, and I can tell who is evil" is upholdable as evidence in a court of law.

And, um, I'm pretty sure that Mad Mardigan was supposed to be Chaotic Neutral.

-Desdan

[RandomCasualty]

1148947861[/unixtime]]That is not just a failure of the alignment system, it's also a failure of the binary nature of Detect Evil, the tendency of PCs to favor killing over capturing and/or reforming enemies going back almost thirty years, and a failure of settings where "I am a Paladin, and I can tell who is evil" is upholdable as evidence in a court of law.

Yeah, all that goes back to Gygax, where adventures weren't stories so much as trap filled mazes with a bunch of monsters in them. In the old Gygaxian quests you didn't have a heck of a lot of choices. Mostly detect evil wasn't a big deal because at best it'd just stop you from slaughtering some good aligned creatures that you happened to meet.

Of course, by not slaughtering them you'd also miss out on their treasure too, so it didn't do all that much.

Alignment has evolved into so much more now, and I don't think the game has totally caught up by roasting those sacred cows.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

But in the above example, still, the paladin would be in a state of non-innocence until he got an atonement.

Non-innocence doesn't necessarily equal evil alignment.

Other good characters have more leeway (such as not losing their alignment if they are caught lying)

Paladins don't lose their good alignment if they're caught lying. In fact, they probably don't lose their paladinhood, as lying is chaotic rather than evil in D&D terms.

but there are still acts in this game which will nonetheless automatically put you in a non-pure state no matter what else you do: using undead, poison, certain artifacts, etc.

And if you could show some evidence that all evil acts, not just some, produce this effect, you'll have a case.

He said it himself in the movie that he doesn't give a rat's ass who he works for as long as he gets money.

But in D&D terms that's not evil. Not giving a rat's ass about good or evil makes you neutral on that axis. Since Han Solo doesn't care who pays him, he's just as willing to take Obi Wan and Luke's money as he is Jabba the Hutt's.

[Digestor]

Might I ask what changes you made to the alignment system? I can't help but think replacing it would be better than fixing it.

[Nidhogg]

I didn't really change it, so much as properly defined it, and removed the ambiguity between what traits define what alignment. I did, however, add another axis called 'devotion', which is represented by using capital and lowercases. For instance, if you are 'Evil', then you believe in the philosophy of survival of the fitest, self preservation, and probably hurt people for fun; if you are 'evil', then you are a jerk who is mean to people and gets ahead at thier expense, you might also hurt people for fun, but for different reasons, and even then you're probably too scared of the law to try. The difference is in semantics, but it does help differentiate between big nasties like Baatazu (Lawful Evil), and small nasties like the merchant who sold you shoddy gear (Lawful evil or lawful evil).

The system is a little bit more complex than my summery, and I have a big master list breaking down each alignment and its importance and implications. Currently, however, my 'alignment theory' is married to my campaign setting, so if you are interested in seeing it you may have to put up with some fluff material as well.

[Digestor]

Not bad. The "magnitude" clause, or your devotion, is something that's really missing from the alignment system... then again the entire thing is pretty bankrupt (unless you play on a fool's list of black of white).

I always thought about doing away with it and simple having a guage, not too dissimilar to KotOR's, on multiple axes as well as a semi-detailed description of the person's behavior. That is to say, you may have broken the law and been a total jerk, but that in no way is fitting for Chaotic Evil or even chaotic evil (lower case), it'll earn you the title of "vagabond" or "ass" or something another... I mean, take for instance an evil warrior - he's literally out for evil, sort of. He wants to massacre the town that shunned him out. On his journeys he acquires alot of gold, but he doesn't care about the gold - so he pays overly handsomely for everything, including the insanely large tips of platinum coins to the 9 year old who's fetching his drinks - he never says thank you or anything, but drops it like he "just don' care". That really doesn't fit into the current alignment... I think something like "vengeful" with a sub heading of "on wrong path" or something is more fitting... he's not really evil, he's just blinded by rage. Then again, this is all shit you guys have already thought over at least 50 times, per month.

Then again, I guess the big problem with being evil is that the rewards usually aren't as neat as being good...

(I don't mind the fluff, if you don't mind posting it)

[squirrelloid]

1154000827[/unixtime]]I didn't really change it, so much as properly defined it, and removed the ambiguity between what traits define what alignment. I did, however, add another axis called 'devotion', which is represented by using capital and lowercases. For instance, if you are 'Evil', then you believe in the philosophy of survival of the fitest, self preservation, and probably hurt people for fun; if you are 'evil', then you are a jerk who is mean to people and gets ahead at thier expense, you might also hurt people for fun, but for different reasons, and even then you're probably too scared of the law to try. The difference is in semantics, but it does help differentiate between big nasties like Baatazu (Lawful Evil), and small nasties like the merchant who sold you shoddy gear (Lawful evil or lawful evil).

The system is a little bit more complex than my summery, and I have a big master list breaking down each alignment and its importance and implications. Currently, however, my 'alignment theory' is married to my campaign setting, so if you are interested in seeing it you may have to put up with some fluff material as well.

"survival of the fittest", ie Natural Selection, isn't a philosophy, its a provable law of reality. Deductive logic style. I could probably demonstrate it in 300 words or less.

How is believing reality is real (eg, that things we can prove to be true are real) an evil act? I don't get it.